Beasts of the Southern Wild is the remarkable first feature of director and co-writer Benh Zeitlin. Set in a southern Louisiana bayou backwater called The Bathtub, it concerns the lives of 6-year-old Hushpuppy and her daddy, Wink, as they fight to survive with few allies in the big, bad world.

More poem than short story, Beasts will frustrate viewers who demand strict logic or easy narrative. But let yourself go along with its imagery — both real and magical — and the reward is the astounding central performance of Quvenzhané Wallis, not yet 6 when she made this and untrained at acting, as the nearly feral Hushpuppy.

“We got the best place on Earth,” Hushpuppy says, even though she and Wink live in what most of us would call abject squalor: a pair of ramshackle huts, one for each of them. They survive on catfish and crayfish they catch in abundance, supplemented with the occasional chicken they can scrounge.

Hushpuppy’s mom is long gone, and Wink lives in an alcoholic haze made worse by a mystery illness that seems to be worsening. It’s a situation that can’t hold.

Beasts of the Southern Wild doesn’t always make sense. But anchored by one of the most affecting performances by a youngster in recent memory — consider young Quvenzhané a good bet for a Best Actress Oscar nomination — it’s a magical piece of filmmaking.

Pitch Perfect is Bring It On without the pom-poms and Drumline without the percussion, but it does have projectile vomiting.

All of which is both as good and as bad as that description sounds. Luckily, the good outweighs the bad in this bright ’n’ breezy comedy about competitive a cappella singing groups.

Anna Kendrick stars as freshman Beca (not entirely convincing playing the “alt-girl” role) who arrives in time to help the Bellas of Barden University kick their performing up a notch against their male rivals, the Treble Makers. The fellas, led by the perfectly obnoxious Bumper (Adam DeVine), are the perennial winners of the collegiate a cappella competition.

You don’t need perfect pitch to figure out where this musical mash-up is headed, which fresh-to-film director Jason Moore (Broadway’s Avenue Q) guides to a resolution that is both predictable and tuneful.

The movie succeeds in spite of painful stereotypes, a tepid romance (Skylar Astin is the designated distraction) and a few logic gaps (how’d the Bellas get so good so fast? Why is The Breakfast Club a millennial touchstone?)

PitchPerfect is set in the right key, but sometimes feels a little flat.

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.